I don’t understand why it should have been the case, but I found the process of selecting my entry for this year’s Bradford Open to be particularly difficult. Yesterday I narrowed my choice down to a short-list, and made it my main business this morning to take a careful look at what I had chosen. I tried to do it systematically, and drew up a table, with the titles of the pictures along the top, and down the side I listed several criteria by which I thought they could be judged. The list included whether I thought the picture was eye-catching and engaging, whether it was well-executed technically, whether I thought the composition was good, whether it was well-presented and whether (going beyond any initial response to it) there was a layer of ideas and associations that might lead the viewer to stay with the piece for more than an initial acquaintance. Finally, and having done this, I looked for some possibility that any selection of three pieces I might put forward could be seen as having something that held them together as a unified submission.
The initial marking was at first a disappointing experience, as I found it didn’t create an immediately obvious hierarchy that would solve the selection problem. It was interesting, however, to note that one piece did score notably more than others (my triptych of bark studies that I have entitled Treeptych). It then came to mind that it would be useful to put forward three items unified by their use of a common medium, demonstrating my command of that. Three of the pieces were in oil pastel. One of the items (based upon tree roots) I have never exhibited before, although my wife quite likes it. It is entitled Underground Man, because it is possible to imagine a human face and arm, and these call to my mind the character from Dostoyevski’s novel. I felt that I had arrived at a solution to the problem that was, if not completely convincing, then certainly defensible,
The bureaucratic form-filling that goes with any competition entry was pretty straightforward …. with the exception, of course, of the usual agonising about price. On this occasion I decided to be equally systematic. (I couldn’t fall back consistently on prices charged earlier, because one had never been shown before, and another only exhibited in venues that charged no commission.) I tried charging £1 per square inch, plus the price of framing, and then applied the gallery’s commission rate of 30%. In fact, the price I arrived at for the triptych matched very closely what I had asked before, and the others fell into a reasonable distribution. So I stuck with that.
I handed in the work at Cartwright Hall with an hour and a half to spare. Their staff were friendly and efficient. All I need to do now is wait and hope. The jury’s decision will be announced (I believe) in about a week’s time.